One WASH National Program (OWNP) Ethiopia: A SWAp with a comprehensive management structure

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1 38th WEDC International Conference, Loughborough University, UK, 2015 WATER, SANITATION AND HYGIENE SERVICES BEYOND 2015: IMPROVING ACCESS AND SUSTAINABILITY One WASH National Program (OWNP) Ethiopia: A SWAp with a comprehensive management structure K. Goyol & A. Girma (Ethiopia) BRIEFING PAPER 2187 The Government of Ethiopia s (GoE) One WASH National Programme, launched in September 2013 is a comprehensive 7 years programme ( ). It operationalizes agreements between 4 sector ministries; Water, Health, Education and Finance, with a total budget of USD $2.4bill. The Program is the GoE s main instrument for achieving the goals set out in the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), with targets for access to safe water supply at 98%, 100% for rural and urban areas, respectively. The targets for sanitation and hygiene set out in the Universal Access Plan (UAP) are that all Ethiopians will have access to basic sanitation, while 77% of the population practice hand washing at critical times, and 80% of communities in the country declared open defecation free (ODF). The SWAp in Ethiopia aspires to be the most comprehensive WASH SWAp ever, with a unified planning, budgeting and monitoring system. Ethiopia s ONE WASH National Programme: An overview The Government of Ethiopia s (GoE) One WASH National Program, launched in September 2013, with the active support of UNICEF Ethiopia, is a comprehensive Seven years programme ( ) with initial two years transitional period Phase I: and Phase II: and launched in September The programme operationalizes agreements between 4 sector ministries; Water, Irrigation & Energy, Health, Education and Finance & Economic Development, with a total budget of USD $2.4bill, which, if fully funded, would make it the largest ever Water Sector SWAp. The Program is the GoE s main instrument for achieving the goals set out in the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP), with targets for access to safe water supply at 98%, 100% for rural and urban areas, respectively. The targets for sanitation and hygiene set out in the Universal Access Plan (UAP) are that all Ethiopians will have access to basic sanitation, while 77% of the population practice hand washing at critical times, and that 80% of communities in the country declared open defecation free (ODF). A sector wide approach (SWAp) is a framework for programming for a sector that helps government and development partners work effectively towards jointly defined objectives while building national capacity. SWAp designs vary widely, but they are most commonly defined as an approach by which Government and donors can support the development of a sector in an integrated fashion through a single sector policy and expenditure programme, under Government leadership, using common management and reporting procedures and progressing towards the use of Government procedures to disburse and account for all funds (Foster and Fozzard, 2000). SWAps are informed by global efforts and instruments to improve aid effectiveness, including the provisions in the Rome Agreement on Harmonization (2003) and the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness (2005). The SWAp in Ethiopia aspires to be the most comprehensive WASH SWAp ever, with a unified planning, budgeting and monitoring system. It aims to address the needs of rural, urban and pastoralist communities, schools and health posts in a more integrated manner and reduces the administrative fragmentation of WASH service delivery, incorporating seven government-led management elements: one planning system with linked strategic and annual WASH plans at each level one budgeting system reflecting all WASH-related investments and expenditures 1

2 one financial management system with consolidated accounting and reports one procurement system with common standards and procedures one information system with essential data updated and accessible at each level one monitoring and evaluation system with common indicators and consolidated analysis one reporting system with agreed formats Program description The OWNP development objective is to contribute to improving the health and well-being in rural and urban areas by increasing water supply and sanitation access and the adoption of good hygiene practices in an equitable and sustainable manner, by ensuring that vulnerable groups (poorest communities, women, children, people with disabilities ) have physical access to facilities this entails for example the introduction of improved pro-poor mode of services for the water supply such as the kiosks, the development of public sanitation facilities located in congested areas of the towns and equipped with separate blocks for women and man and with improved access for people with disabilities, the development of child-friendly designs for latrines in schools with proper MHM facilities and the development of resilient WaSH services in peripheral areas of the towns. The programme includes the following 4 components: Component 1: Rural and Pastoral WASH, including rural and peri-urban sanitation - Estimated cost: USD 1.03 billion for water supply and about USD 0.4 billion for sanitation and hygiene. Activities will include construction of 55,865 new conventional water points and water supply schemes and rehabilitation of 20,010 existing schemes to achieve the GTP target of 98.5% access in water supply and to reduce nonfunctionality of water supply facilities to 10%. Furthermore, 42,529 household dug wells and community dug wells are expected to be constructed by households and communities through self-supply enhancement program. Sanitation activities include motivating households and supporting institutions to improve access to improved latrines. Health Extension Workers (HEWs) and members of the Health Development Army (had) will be instrumental in achieving sanitation and hygiene improvements at household level. Some 36% of the proposed budget for sanitation in Component 1 is allocated to software activities, while 64% is allocated to hardware support Component 2: Urban WASH- Estimated cost: approximately USD 786 million for urban water supply and USD 95.7 million for sanitation improvements in urban areas. Main activities include study and design, capacity building and management, environmental safeguards and resettlement, immediate service improvements and expansion and augmentation of water supply in cities and towns. Urban sanitation interventions will include de-sludging equipment and facilities, management of wastewater and construction of public toilets. In Addis Ababa, expansion of the existing sewerage network is also included. Component 3: Institutional WASH - Estimated cost: USD million. Activities include support to improving water supply and sanitation facilities and hygiene practices at health institutions through regional and city health bureaus, and schools through regional and city education bureaus. Regional/City water bureaus may provide technical assistance in the design, construction and supervision of water supply systems in institutions on request from regional health or education bureaus. The indicated amount includes 11,415,542 USD to be used for water quality monitoring. Doing so is expected to increase economy of scale and ease out administration arrangements. Component 4: Program Management and Capacity Building - Estimated cost: USD 90,028,152 for rural WASH program management and capacity building and 78,618,150 for urban WASH program management and capacity building. Furthermore technical assistance in self supply, supply chain, pastoral WaSH, M&E will be provided at a cost of USD 10,158,848. This component includes support to improve skills and capacity of WASH organizations and implementing parties at federal, regional/city, woreda/town and Kebele/villages and community levels to plan, manage and monitor Program activities as well as strengthening M&E capacity at all levels and support to qualitative research and studies. This will be done through provision of training, equipment, tools, and, where required, software for monitoring and reporting, GIS and accounting and billing systems and post-construction management and technical support. 2

3 Capacities of Technical and Vocational Training Colleges (TVETCs) and Health Science Colleges (HSCs) to provide relevant training to WASH technicians will be enhanced at an estimated cost of USD 11,977,590 through support to training-of-trainers, curriculum development and workshop and laboratory equipment. The Ethiopian Water Technology Institute will be used to train WASH professionals at an estimated cost of USD 3,655,300. Figure 1. Financial Requirement by Major Programme Component (USD) Source: OWNP Programme Document Targeting and equity The program seeks to reduce regional and social disparities in access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation. Doing this requires identifying and targeting areas with low access to safe water or improved sanitation according to the National WASH Inventory (NWI), which may be woredas, urban kebeles or other areas. Gender disaggregated indicators will be used where relevant to track gender equity in roles and benefits. Social inclusion and equity in WaSH service delivery will be strengthen by the programme through the development of a comprehensive approach. The Program will use both NWI results and hot spots classification to identify and prioritize WASH interventions targeting underserved areas. This will require close coordination between the Program and various humanitarian organizations providing emergency WASH interventions. To this end, it is proposed that the Emergency Preparedness and Response Unit (EPRU) in MoWE be considered as a member of the National WASH Technical Team (NWTT) and provide information on plans, progress and expenditure to the national WASH coordination office (NWCO). Program implementation process The following diagram shows the organization and sequence of activities for the Program s core planning and implementation process at federal, regional, city, zone, woreda, kebele and community levels. The keystone of Program planning and implementation is the Consolidated WASH Plan at woreda, region, city/town and federal levels. These plans will include a budget and procurement plan. 3

4 Figure 2. Programmes core Planning and Implementation Process Source: OWNP Programme document Programme budget The overall financial requirement for achieving the GTP Targets is USD 2,411,264,241. The breakdown of the financial requirement by sector is shown in Table 1 below. Requirements for technical assistance communication, pastoralist WASH and M&E are included. Table 1. Financial Requirement by Sector/Organisation (USD) Sector/Organization Budget (USD) % National WaSH Coordination Office (NWCO) 10,158, % Education 239,468,572 10% Health 306,259,956 13% Addis Ababa Water and Sewerage Agency (AAWSA) 196,295,882 8% City Administrations (utilities) 681,101,550 28% Water 977,979,433 41% Total 2,411,264, % 4

5 Financial management In line with the principle of alignment with Government systems the Program will follow GoE s financial management rules and policies. MoFED will be responsible for the overall financial management of the Program and will carry out financial management in accordance with sound financial management procedures including internal control mechanisms in line with GoE s financial management policies and guidelines. Sources of funding Program funding comes from the following sources: Government of Ethiopia External Financing Agencies (investors/development Partners) Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Participating communities in rural areas Water utilities earnings Programme operational manual (POM) A Program Operational Manual (POM) has been developed to serve as the safeguards management document for both the Government of Ethiopia (GoE) and the Development Partners who would be pooling their funds into the Consolidated WaSH account (CWA) to implement part of the OWNP. The POM provides common and practical planning, implementation, administration and operational guidance in the management of CWA finances. This includes steps and procedures to be adopted in the planning, budgeting, disbursement, procurement, supervision, financial management, safeguards management, and monitoring and evaluation of the program that would be financed through the CWA. Four development partners have expressed commitment to participate in OWNP and pool their resources into a CWA to finance part of the OWNP. These include AfDB, DFID, UNICEF and the WB. Other partners are welcome to join the CWA. Progress to date All SWAp partners are coordinated and mobilised towards achieving a common goal. This is evidenced by the comprehensive coordination mechanism established at the national; Water Sector working Group, with WASH and Water Resources Management Technical Committees. The WASH Technical Committee technical sub groups for Urban, Rural, Emergency WASH and hygiene & Sanitation. At the regional and Woreda levels, WASH sector groups are established, with all sector bureaus participating. The Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and the National WaSH coordination office developed and submitted an action plan and budget for 2014/15 fiscal year and a consolidated procurement plan, in line with the provisions in the WaSH - POM. The total budget request for the FY 2014/15 is US $ 118 Mill The Consolidated WaSH account is ready and initial disbursement amounting to US $ 60 Million (DFID US $ 33 Million and UNICEF US $ 1 Million and The World Bank US$ 26 million.) has been deposited in the account. CWA contributing partners hold regular monthly meetings among themselves and with the National WASH Coordination Office as well. To ensure interventions are accepted and owned by communities, a demand driven approach is used as one of the criteria in selecting benefiting communities. This is considered in terms of contributions from Regions down to communities ranging from 10% to 5 % respectively. To ensure effective delivery, the development of capacity (of staff, structures and systems) for implementation at various levels (i.e. federal, region/city/zone, woreda/town, kebele/community is a key area of focus for the programme. A joint government and development partners Kick-off mission to all regions to assess implementation readiness by government and development partners was undertaken in December Lessons learnt The process of aligning procedures between partners and government is one that is time consuming and painstaking, as evidenced by the development of the POM its endorsement and subsequent opening of CWA and funds disbursement. Advocacy for equity; from the provision of data on coverage disparities to full engagement at the design stages to help ensure that OWNP focuses on areas of greatest need. 5

6 The engagement and participation of all four sector Ministries with the entire process is not at the same level, hence there is a tendency to perceive some Ministries as more important than others. Support for Sanitation: OWNP has led to increased funding, technical support for programme design, and helping to ensure that government agencies responsible for sanitation and hygiene are brought into OWNP as full/equal partners. The need for a robust and clear Communication protocol between Development partners and between the partners and government cannot be over emphasised as this is needed to avoid any misunderstanding/give wrong messages Ethiopia has incorporated annual sustainability checks in the One WASH National Program (OWNP) document to tackle the issues raised in reviews of Water Sector SWAps which suggest that sustainability continues to be a challenge, especially with respect to the financial sustainability and management effectiveness of water system management structures (including at the community level) and the establishment of supply chains (EC, 2009; EC, 2011; MOW, 2013; NIRAS, 2013; Salomon Lda., 2013). Benchmarking progress on recommendations on Fiduciary Risk Assessment (FRA) and its mitigation plan produced by NWCO for ONEWASH programme, will require strong follow up. Acknowledgements The authors would like to extend their thanks to all WASH stakeholders in Ethiopia, especially staff of the NWCO for their hard work in ensuring the successful roll out of the OWNP in Ethiopia. References EC (2009) Développement et gouvernance du secteur de l eau : Complémentarités et synergies entre l approche sectorielle et la gestion intégrée des ressources en eau, Document de Référence N 7, European Commission: Brussels. EC (2011) Study of Sector Wide Approach in the water sector, Tools and Methods Series, Reference Document N 16, European Commission: Brussels. Foster, M. and Fozzard, A (2000) Aid and Public Expenditure: A Guide ODI Working Paper 141, Overseas Development Institute, London. MOW (2014) Tanzania Water Sector Development Programme Phase II (2014/ /2019), Ministry of Water: Dar es Salaam. MoWI&E (2013) Federal democratic Republic of Ethiopia: One WASH National Programme a multi sectoral SWAp Programme Document August 2013, Ministry of Water Irrigation and Energy, Addis Ababa NIRAS (2013) Assessment of the Past Support to the Harmonised Rural Window of the WSTF ( ) and Appraisal of the Co-funding Proposal ( ), NIRAS: Allerød, Denmark. Salomon Lda. (2013) Programa Nacional de Água e Saneamento Rural (PRONASAR), Avaliação de Meio-Termo. Salomon for Ministério das Obras Públicas e Habitação : Maputo. Contact details Kitka Goyol WASH Specialist, UNICEF Ethiopia ECA Compound, Addis Ababa Tel: +251(0) Fax: +251(0) kgoyol@unicef.org www: Unicef.org/ethiopia Ato Abiy Girma National WASH Coordination Office, Ministry of Water Irrigation and Energy Addis Ababa: Ethiopia Tel: +251( ) girma_abiy@yahoo/com 6